


With a Buzz in Our Ears

by CloudAtlas



Series: Oxfam AU [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe – British, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Charity Shop, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Discussions of Homophobia/Biphobia, F/M, Female Friendship, M/M, Marriage, Oxfam, POV Female Character, Platonic Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 04:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3474452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, girl meets boy's best friend.</p><p>OR: Peggy volunteers at Oxfam and gains a husband. Just, there are some steps in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Buzz in Our Ears

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my Oxfam 'verse. Just... not the part I or anyone else expected. Thank you, once again, to the incomparable Oxford Comma Queen **inkvoices** for beta.
> 
> Title from the Sigur Ros song [Með Suð í Eyrum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-EJVNd5RJI) from the album Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust [tr: With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly] because Sigur Ros were the soundtrack to my volunteering. Also, I wrote this before Agent Carter started, which is why Angie and Sousa aren't here.
> 
> WARNING: this is not the Steve/Bucky fic you're looking for. Neither is it the threesome fic you're looking for.

Peggy watches Steve restock Literature, his shirt riding up slightly and showing a sliver of skin just above his waistband. It’s more distracting than it should be considering Peggy is a fully functional grown-up with her fair share of past sexual encounters. It’s not like she hasn’t seen attractive men before, it’s just… Steve is a lot more attractive than most guys.

Peggy began volunteering at Oxfam two months after starting her PhD and at the insistence of Betty, one of the first friends she made in this university despite the fact they study completely different disciplines. Her husband Bruce volunteers with Oxfam and Betty thought a distraction would help Peggy out; being fully funded has its perks, but human interaction is not really one of them. So she’d signed up to work one day a week in order to fulfil her ‘human interaction’ quota and she has yet to regret it.

It’s fun. The shop had just come under new management, the darkly scowling Nick Fury taking over from the charismatic Alex Pierce – and isn’t that a good lesson against stereotyping? Nick is a management wizard while Alex was a categorical failure – and turning the shop around seemingly right under Peggy’s nose, up to and including attracting new volunteers.

And one of those new volunteers was Steve; attractive Steve with his slim hips and asthma, killer smile and propensity to wear the type of shirts Peggy would enjoy peeling off him with her teeth. Steve was scheduled to work Sundays with her and Melinda – another, more senior, volunteer – on account of being a teacher, and it only took two Sundays before Peggy was utterly charmed. What’s more, Peggy is pretty sure that if she were to ask him out he’d say yes.

The only problem is that Peggy maintains that asking out people from work _whilst at work_ is not at all classy, and she’s never seen Steve outside of Oxfam.

(Technically she could ask for his number and _arrange_ to meet him outside of Oxfam but they are both ridiculous workaholics with no free time. And, she thinks as Steve returns to the shop floor with a cup for tea for her, there can be no way that he’s not already with someone. Just _look_ at him.)

 

They’re out at the House of Trembling Madness because Faiza has finally managed to land herself a good job at the local hospital and Peggy decided that celebrations were in order. Of course Faiza doesn’t drink, but she had agreed that the décor was more than enough to make up for how loud Susan got after a couple of glasses of wine. So the three of them dressed up – Susan in a smart cocktail dress, Faiza in a beautiful suit, and Peggy in her favourite rockabilly dress – and headed out to possibly the smallest and most attractive bar the entire town had to offer.

Trembling Madness is tiny, candlelit, and strangely romantic despite all the fur pelts and taxidermy. It’s been Susan’s local since she moved here for her undergrad and became Peggy’s local as soon as she moved up from Oxford to do her PhD. She loves that it has real candles without any care for health and safety, that it has Old Peculiar on tap, and that it has a wild boar pelt – complete with tusks and glassy marble eyes – hanging in the little anteroom near the stairs.

One night she had christened him Lord Horace Wattle-Daub. She’d been drunk, OK?

So Trembling Madness is _hers_ now; comfortable and familiar and anonymous. It’s central enough for the three of them to meet in and popular enough for the three of them to pick up guys when they feel like it – well, Peggy and Susan can. Faiza isn’t into that and, anyway, she’s engaged. She’s a great wing-woman though.

“You girls want some tail?” Faiza asks as they take their drinks from the bar. Faiza has the advantage of the entire bar staff knowing she only ever orders coke, so she doesn’t have to wait half as long to be served as anyone else.

“Why?” says Susan, wrestling with her purse to pay for her vodka cranberry.

“Hotties at ten o’clock,” Faiza says in explanation, nodding towards the low window opposite the bar, and Peggy turns around to see Steve Rogers. Because _of course_.

“Fuck,” Peggy says.

“What? Not hot?”

“Yes. I mean, no. Oh Lord,” Peggy mumbles, dropping her head onto Susan’s shoulder. “That’s Steve.”

She feels Susan’s head jerk up and Peggy’s head slips off her shoulder as she turns to look. “Which one?”

“Blond,” Peggy mumbles into her beer. “Leather jacket.”

“Hot damn, girl,” Susan says, impressed. “I _approve_.”

They force their way through the crush at the tiny bar to the little anteroom by the stairs and Susan positions them so they’re still in view of Steve and his friends by the window. Peggy pats Lord Horace Wattle-Daub on the head as a hello and Faiza shakes her head.

“OK,” Susan says, pointing at Peggy accusingly with her drink, “and you haven’t asked this guy out _why_?”

“Oxfam isn’t a dating service,” Peggy replies.

“Plus,” says Faiza, “asking work people out at work is sort of lame.”

Peggy gestures at Faiza with her Old Peculiar. “That too.”

Susan looks less than impressed by her reasoning.

“OK, no. When the guy in question is that hot,” – she points over at where Steve is sitting with his friend and Peggy is momentarily distracted watching him laugh – “there is no good reason not to ask him out. But lucky for you, you are not at Oxfam right now and look damn fine.” Susan shoves at Peggy’s arm. “Go get your man.”

Peggy ignores her and instead turns to Faiza.

“How did this happen so fast? She’s only had half her drink.”

“She’s got a point though, Peg. You’ve been working with this guy for months now and haven’t even managed to get his number, which is very unlike you.”

“Oh, not you too – ”

“I’m just saying! You have no problem going for what you want, so why’s this guy different? Judging by his slightly retro style and _very_ flattering jeans he’s practically your soul mate. And you’re hot as anything.”

Peggy raises an eyebrow at that statement.

“Hey,” Faiza says, “I’m – ”

“A practising Muslim, not _blind_ ,” Peggy and Susan say in unison, smiling. “We know.”

Faiza sticks her tongue out at them.

“Faiza’s got a point though,” Susan says. “You could get anyone you want – _and have_ , don’t think I’ve forgotten Jacques.” Peggy punches her on the arm on principle alone. Nothing happened with Jacques. “So why haven’t you pulled the Carter-moves on this guy?”

Peggy shrugs and looks back over at Steve. The candles here make him _glow_. She idly wonders what he’d look like in the morning – just a regular morning. Whether he’d have ridiculous bedhead and pillow creases.

“Ah.”

“What?” Peggy says, turning back to Susan and Faiza, both of whom are sharing knowing looks over their glasses.

“Margaret Carter finally finds someone she wants to _date_ when she’s doing a PhD which makes her so busy her _best friends_ hardly ever see her.”

“Not true!” exclaims Peggy.

“Which part?” Susan says slyly, but Peggy doesn’t say anything in reply and Susan cackles unattractively into her drink.

“Peggy Carter, I do believe you’re an overqualified twenty-something with a _crush_.”

“Fuck off, Pevensie,” Peggy grumbles into her drink. Damn Steve Rogers and his perfect… everything.

“Never fear!” Susan exclaims. “Faiza and I are here to rescue you.” She leans over and takes Peggy’s beer from her hand, fiddling with her hair and straightening her jacket before unceremoniously pulling at the top of her dress to show off more cleavage.

“Susan!” Peggy hisses, trying to move out of the way and failing thanks to Faiza not budging an inch on her other side. “Faiza! Help!”

“Sorry, Peg,” Faiza says grinning unapologetically and patting Peggy patronisingly on the arm. “I’m with Suze on this one. Go ask your man out.”

“I can’t just go up to him and ask him out! He doesn’t even know I’m here!”

“Ah,” says Faiza, draining her class of coke, “but he’s getting up to go to the bar and I’ve just finished my coke.”

Susan grins triumphantly as Faiza pulls out a fiver.

“Be a darling,” Faiza says, “and get me another one.”

Peggy snatches the fiver out of Faiza’s hand and scowls at them both before getting up and heading for the bar again, though she takes a moment to pull her dress up a little. Susan yells “Boo!” over Faiza’s head and Peggy flips them both the bird.

She can do this. It’s fine. He’s just the hottest guy she’s seen ever, and _nice_ to boot.

As she sidles up next to Steve at the bar Peggy decides that the whole fake-surprise thing would be stupid. So instead she takes a split second to compose herself before opening with, “Fancy seeing you here.”

Steve turns at the sound of her voice and, as soon as he spots her, his expression morphs into one of surprised delight.

“Peggy! Hi! How are you? What are you doing here?”

Steve’s smile is distracting, so it takes her a moment to reply.

“I’m fine. I’m here with some friends. Faiza just landed her dream job at the hospital.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder to where Faiza and Susan are shamelessly ogling from the anteroom. Steve glances over and gives them a wave, and Peggy can hear Susan squeal in delight. When did Susan become such a lightweight anyway? She’s only had one vodka cranberry.

But Peggy forgets Susan and Faiza soon enough, Steve drawing her into conversation about Oxfam, his kids, her research. It takes a while for Peggy to realise that they’ve been stood at the bar for nearly twenty minutes, Faiza’s coke sweating on the counter while other patrons are forced to place orders over their shoulders.

Peggy discovers that Steve’s here with some friends and one of the other teachers from his school and that Trembling Madness is his local as well, though she’s never seen him here before. He also drinks Old Peculiar, same as her, which hits Peggy in the gut for some reason, and she gets distracted every time Steve lifts his glass to his mouth; his bottom lip pressing against the rim and his throat elongated as he swallows.

He’s halfway through an amusing anecdote about some student of his who attempted to paint his friend orange when Peggy blurts out, “Have dinner with me tomorrow?” mid-sentence, and Steve’s expression goes from shocked to delighted to blushing in three seconds flat.

Steve says yes even before Peggy registers what she’s said.

 

Their first date is the next evening, after their shift in Oxfam, in the Italian on Swinegate. They sit and talk until the place closes and Steve walks her home even though she’s fairly sure he lives on the opposite side of town to her.

Their second date is at the Red Chilli and Steve looks beautiful in his shirt and jacket – despite Steve wearing his usual run down converse. Peggy was expecting that though; he’d explained one Sunday that in his opinion, “Smart shoes are only for work, weddings, and funerals. Nothing else.” The entire evening is wonderful and at the end of it all he kisses her on her doorstep like some old Hollywood film, shitty shoes be damned.

For their third date they go to see a film, and Peggy realises that Steve’s angelic demeanour is just a façade when she feels his hand creep up her skirt in the darkness.

They sleep together after their fourth date, three weeks after their first. Peggy wakes up the morning after with his leg between hers, his hands around her waist, and her head tucked under Steve’s chin, and she thinks _yes_.

 

Steve’s flat, Peggy discovers, is full of the weirdest stuff. There’s a Buddha in front of the fireplace, despite the fact that Peggy knows Steve to be a Christian. There’s an Indian-style wall-hanging in his bedroom and little Chinese paintings in the hall, small marble figurines along the cistern of the toilet and incense holders by the TV. One day Peggy finds some truly horrific silk shirts in the back of his wardrobe, and there are little totem poles and wooden carvings on almost all the windowsills. There’s also a multitude of soft furnishings from various corners of the globe that make it look as though Camden Market threw up all over his home and, even though Peggy has heard a lot about Steve’s best friend Bucky while at Oxfam, coming to Steve’s place is the first time she’s had any tangible proof of his existence.

“Bucky sent me that from Cambodia,” Steve will say, pointing at some figurine or other. Or “I got that last time Bucky was back in the UK. It’s from Peru, I think.”

Steve has this fond smile on his face whenever he talks about Bucky, and occasionally Peggy gets the feeling that she’s staying in amongst the possessions of an ex-girlfriend Steve can’t quite get over. But it doesn’t happen all that often and eventually it’s eclipsed completely by the sudden realisation that half her research is at his flat and she hasn’t slept at home for four nights.

And then one evening, when she’s typing up some research at Steve’s kitchen table and he’s making dinner, she looks over at him and suddenly thinks, _I could do this for the rest of my life_.

Steve must hear her typing stop, because he turns around to look at her questioningly.

“Are you OK?”

Peggy’s eyes drift around the room, taking in her research and his cooking and her coat by the door and his work shoes by the fridge.

“When’s your lease up?” she asks eventually.

“It won’t be,” Steve says. “I own this place.”

“Oh,” Peggy says, thrown a little. Steve doesn’t talk about it much, but she knows that both his parents died before he turned twenty. Perhaps that’s how he could afford to buy. How terribly _adult_. She’s still renting, because PhD funds aren’t for buying houses with and even if they were she’d never be able to get something this nice.

She hesitates. Suggesting they move in together is a big step, one she’s never made with any of her previous boyfriends. Peggy likes her independence and she always felt that moving in with someone would cramp her style somewhat; make her feel hemmed in, beholden, _restricted_.

This doesn’t feel restrictive though. This feels right.

“Mine’s up in six weeks,” she says, before waiting for him to put two and two together.

Steve turns fully around.

“You want to move in with me?” he says, a grin stealing over his face.

Peggy gestures around them. “I think I’ve already moved in. I want to stop having two homes.”

Steve dumps his spatula in the pot and quickly turns the heat off before striding over to where Peggy is sitting, pulling her out of her chair and kissing her hard on the mouth.

“I think,” he says between kisses, “that’s a brilliant idea.”

He pushes her laptop away before lifting her onto the table. Nothing Peggy had learnt about Steve prior to dating him had implied that sex on the kitchen table was a Steve-like thing to happen. Peggy loves being wrong.

“I thought – oh! – I thought you were making food?” Peggy pants as he pushes her dress up her thighs.

“Food,” he says, still kissing her, “is not what I’m hungry for right now.”

Steve is flushed, his eyes bright and his mouth and chin covered in her lipstick, and as she gazes at him all Peggy can think is _I love you, Steve Rogers_.

 

Peggy knows Steve and Bucky Skype. She knows they email. She knows Bucky sends Steve gifts and postcards from wherever he happens to be in the world because she sees them appear all over their ( _their!_ ) home.

Peggy has lived with Steve for eight months now, and known him for a year and a half, but she’s never met Bucky. What’s more, sometimes she gets the impression that Bucky has no idea she exists or, if he does, he’s ignoring her. Steve always tells her how much Bucky would like her, or how much she’d like him, but it’s been a year and a half and sometimes she wonders if Steve’s certainty is misplaced.

 

The first time Bucky visits since Peggy has known Steve happens when Peggy is in Oxford for a series of lectures directly related to her PhD. She’s only there for a week, but when she comes back Bucky has already left and Steve is more subdued than Peggy has ever known him to be.

“I need some wine,” Peggy says. She’s been back for an hour or so, but Steve hasn’t cheered up at all and it’s late enough that wine isn’t _unreasonable._ “Wine and pizza. What do you say?”

Steve runs his hands through his hair. “Wine sounds really good right now,” he says, with a tilt to his mouth that Peggy doesn’t like.

They get drunk on the sofa thanks to cheap Chablis and Peggy watches as Steve becomes more and more morose. Steve doesn’t get drunk often – because he’s a teacher but also because he’s _Steve_ – so Peggy doesn’t really have much experience with him like this. Not, she thinks, that this is likely to be usual. Steve is usually a happy drunk, as far as she knows.

“What’s wrong Steve?” she asks eventually, when it’s one in the morning and Steve hasn’t volunteered anything. “Is it Bucky?”

Steve flinches minutely at the mention of Bucky’s name, just like he had when she’d asked how their week together had been, and he slumps over, placing his head in her lap and burying his face in her stomach. His fingers curl into the top of the Indian pants Peggy’s wearing, but he doesn’t say anything, so she just runs her hand though his hair.

She and Steve don’t really fight. Steve yells sometimes and Peggy knows she can be incredibly passive-aggressive and short with people when she’s pissed off, but on the whole they’ve managed to talk through any problems that have arisen. And, as a result, Peggy has found that the easiest way to sort things out is to let Steve talk when he’s ready.

After a while Steve sighs loudly into her t-shirt and sits up. “I don’t even – I guess the easiest place to start is that I’m bi.”

Peggy was still before, but she suddenly feels completely immobile, all her muscles locked up in a panicked response she doesn’t quite understand.

“What?”

“I’m bi,” Steve repeats. “Mostly into women but also sometimes not, so… bi.”

And he says it so matter of fact that Peggy is suddenly, horrifically, _irrationally_ angry.

“You already knew this,” she says, trying and failing to keep the emotion from her voice. “This isn’t something you just worked out now, you _knew_ and didn’t tell me.”

“It didn’t matter before.”

“Of course it mattered before!” cries Peggy.

“Why?” demands Steve. “Because I might leave you for a guy? I might leave you for another girl too. What does the gender of this hypothetical person matter? It would still be leaving.”

“So you’re leaving?” Peggy snarls. “You’re just going to – ”

“Of course fucking not,” Steve says, mouth hard. “I’m just saying – ”

But something awful just occurs to Peggy.

“Are you sleeping with Bucky?” Peggy demands, cutting him off. Her hands ache from how tightly her fists are curled and her nails are biting into her palms.

“What? No!” Steve looks like he has no idea how the conversation got away from him so quickly.

“The _truth_ , Steve,” Peggy snarls.

“No!” Steve exclaims vehemently. “I – he’s – _fuck_.”

Steve suddenly looks as though the world is falling away from underneath his feet. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

“ _What_ , Steve?”

“He was my first kiss,” Steve says, low and forced out. “He was my first kiss and the first person I slept with and my first in absolutely everything you can do that doesn’t depend on your partner being a woman. We weren’t together – not really, not properly – but there wasn’t really anyone else until I was seventeen and we went to different colleges.”

Peggy is trembling slightly now and she can feel tears pricking the corners of her eyes. Nothing Steve is saying is stopping her feeling like she’s spent the past year and a half being the Other Woman.

“But you’ve slept with him since then?”

Steve nods jerkily, looking suddenly miserable and terrified and he has _no right_ because Peggy _knows_ – absolutely _knows_ – that this was not what was bothering Steve. Because Steve had already known this, so at some point Steve had just decided that this wasn’t worth telling Peggy – that the guy whose gifts to Steve surround her in the home the two of them share are from a man that Steve had been sleeping with _at least_ up until they met. And, for all that Steve has said about him, _that_ was apparently unimportant.

“Did you sleep with him this week?”

“What? _No!_ ” Steve sounds horrified by the idea. “I haven’t slept with him for over two years! He’s not – I wouldn’t do that to you! To _anyone_! He – I – fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Steve suddenly looks like all his strings have been cut and he puts his hand over his eyes, before saying quietly, “He’s in love with me.”

“What?” Peggy says, voice robbed of volume and the fight draining out of her by this new twist.

“Bucky,” Steve says, like that was the part that needed clarification. “He’s in love with me.”

Peggy stares at him in silence for a moment, but her brain’s given up.

“I’m going to stay with Betty,” she says abruptly, standing to get her coat.

“What?”

Steve starts, turning wide eyes on her. “No, Peggy, please. Don’t – don’t go. It’s – I’m…” He casts around, as if hoping that the right words will just appear to make her stay.

“Don’t go,” he all but whispers eventually, and abruptly Peggy wants to cry. She quickly gets off the sofa, grabbing her shoes, coat, and keys, but stopping short of reaching for the door.

“Don’t,” Steve says again. “Please.”

Peggy closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Steve,” she says. “You’re bi.”

Steve nods warily.

“And you didn’t tell me.”

This time Steve flinches.

“Your best friend, who you talk about all the time, was the first person you kissed, the first person you slept with, and you _never told me_. I have spent the last eight months surround by stuff bought for you by someone who is, for all intents and purposes, your ex-boyfriend and _you never told me_. Even if I wasn’t drunk and overtired, I wouldn’t be able to deal with that. I can’t – ”

Peggy leans her forehead against the door and takes a deep breath in the vain attempt to stop herself from crying.

“I’m going to Betty’s,” she manages eventually, opening the door. “You have her number.”

 

It takes ten minutes to rouse Betty – or, more accurately, Bruce – and in those ten minutes Peggy realises that most of the clothes she’s wearing aren’t hers. The t-shirt is Steve’s and so are the Indian pants. What’s more, they were both probably bought for him by Bucky – Guatemalan Gallo beer t-shirts aren’t all that easy to come by in the north of England. By the time Bruce, groggy and sleep ruffled, opens the door, Peggy is simply staring straight ahead, clutching her coat around her with tears streaming down her face. She can’t even explain to Bruce what happened, so he simply provides blankets and lets her sleep on the sofa.

When she wakes up the next morning her bottle-and-a-half hangover is compounded by that wrung out feeling you get after crying too much and for a moment she can’t think why either of these things should be. But then it all comes back; Steve being bi, Steve sleeping with Bucky, Steve never _saying_.

Peggy wishes she’d just not woken up.

It takes most of the morning, but eventually Betty coaxes the entire story from her, before proceeding to be both logical and supportive in a way only Betty seems to manage. Saying things like “This is nobody’s fault” and “OK well it’s a little Steve’s fault” and “So what is the problem then? That he’s bi or that he didn’t tell you?”

And that’s just it isn’t it? Because Peggy would love it just to be because he didn’t tell her, but she pauses just a faction too long in answering and Betty _knows_.

“Ah,” she says quietly, before sitting next to Peggy on the sofa. “OK, so that’s an issue too.”

Betty pauses for a moment, to let Peggy jump in and _explain_ , but she doesn’t, because this whole thing makes her uncomfortable in a way she never wanted. Because she never wanted this to be an issue. She never wanted to be that person, never thought she was, and now, on top of everything else, she has to deal with the fact that she possibly has issues regarding bisexuality.

“So why is that an issue?” Betty asks when Peggy hasn’t said anything. “Because he could leave you for a woman just as easily as he could leave you for a man – it would still be leaving. The gender doesn’t actually matter.”

“He said that. Also, you’re a biologist, not a psychologist. What gives?”

Betty smiles. “You wouldn’t be able to tell most of the time, but Bruce has a horrible temper. I have become very good at working out why people get angry about stuff.”

“Oh.” Peggy files that information away; Bruce is one of the sweetest men she’s ever met, so it’s a shock. She doesn’t say anything though.

“So why is that an issue?” Betty repeats.

“I – ” Peggy starts, but she doesn’t get much further than that. It’s true that it doesn’t make a difference, not really, but it’s also true that it does. She looks at everything slightly differently now, and she’s trying to work out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing or just a thing. Because Steve could leave her for a woman, if someone came along who worked better with him than Peggy does. So what then? Is it just that age old worry that maybe he’s missing something she can’t give him? That seems more logical and hurts in a way that makes her feel like it’s right. But is that all?

Peggy recalls her earlier thoughts about Steve’s flat; about how sometimes it felt as though she was living among Steve’s ex-girlfriends possessions and suddenly it slots into place.

“Oh fuck,” she says, dropping her head into her hands. “It’s Bucky.”

“Bucky? As in friend-Bucky?”

“Yeah.” Peggy sighs and slumps back into the sofa cushions, refusing to elaborate. It’s always Bucky. Steve and Bucky. Bucky Bucky Bucky. She idly wonders if she’s somehow wandered into a weird pseudo-threesome, but of course that’s stupid. And anyway, right now she’s not sure she even wants to be with the one guy she _is_ dating.

As soon as she thinks that though, her stomach clenches. Even when she’s incredibly pissed at Steve, she still wants to be with him.

Betty is silent for a while after that and Peggy mostly just stares at the ceiling, trying not to think too hard about how awful everything has gotten recently. And how much she misses Steve because, _God_ , she misses Steve.

“So why’s Bucky the problem?” Betty eventually asks, and _goddammit Betty,_ _can’t you drop this?_ Peggy thinks, irritated.

“Because I can’t fucking compete with Bucky, that’s why!” Peggy snaps. “They’ve known each other since for-bloody-ever and he’s – they’re… _best friends_! I can’t… I can’t compete with that.”

Peggy curls in on herself, angry and hurt and scared.

“OK, back up,” Betty says, frowning. “One, you just told me earlier this morning, amongst the many things you told me this morning, that Steve was upset because Bucky was in love with him. In my experience, the only reason someone would be sad that someone else is in love with them is if they don’t feel the same way and feel guilty about it. Which, again judging by what you’ve just told me, sounds about right for Steve right now.”

Peggy doesn’t say anything for a moment, instead letting Betty’s words sink in.

“But why didn’t he tell me he’s bi?” she says eventually, her voice small.

Betty sighs.

“I don’t know. There can be lots of reasons. Bruce didn’t tell me for the longest time that he went to anger management meetings because… well, because he was ashamed of it. And he didn’t want me thinking he’d ever hit me or something. He’s not violent, but… that’s one of the first thing you think, isn’t it, when someone says anger management. And then, one of my friends from childhood never told me she had cancer – partly because she didn’t want to worry me and partly because she wanted to pretend she didn’t.”

Betty waves her hand vaguely.

“Maybe Steve’s only ever slept with the one guy, maybe he’s only just become comfortable with labelling it, maybe he doesn’t want to make a thing of it. Maybe he’s got used to not saying it. He is a teacher after all and we want to pretend we live in an enlightened age but there would still be parents that would try to get him sacked because they think same sex attraction is akin to child abuse.”

Peggy frowns. She hadn’t thought of that at all.

“But whatever the reason,” Betty continues, “I don’t think it’s to do with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you occasionally say things that make me think he’s told you stuff he hasn’t told other people – which obviously he must have done because you’re in a relationship. But I know where he lives and I know how old he is. Teachers round here don’t earn enough right off the bat to be able to rent places on the river. I don’t know how he can afford that, and I don’t need to know, but the fact that he hasn’t said indicates that it’s… not conventional, or at least not something he wants to talk about. Steve’s a private person, but he’s honest and friendly. I don’t think he’d keep something like that from you out of spite, or maliciously. I just don’t.”

Peggy doesn’t say anything to that, instead tipping her back to stare at the ceiling again. Betty sits with her for a while in silence, before getting up and patting her on the shoulder saying, “I’ll make some tea,” and Peggy only notices she’s come back because a Mr Scruff mug floats into her line of sight.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, wrapping her hands around the hot china.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m still angry,” Peggy says after a while, because she is. She’s still so, so angry, despite Betty’s entirely logical arguments. Steve should have _just said_.

“I can imagine so.”

“And I don’t want to go back yet.”

“You can stay here as long as you need, though I’ll make you up an actual bed this time.”

Peggy shoots her a smile. “You ever considered going into psychology?” she asks, taking a sip of her tea.

Betty laughs. “I’ve spent far too much money on the degrees I already have to suddenly change track now.”

Peggy smiles at that and they fall back into silence.

“You friend,” Peggy says after a while, “the one with cancer. Is she alright?”

Betty sighs again. “She died,” she replies quietly, “two years ago.”

“She ever actually tell you it was cancer?”

“Yeah, eventually, when she couldn’t pretend anymore.”

Peggy drinks some more of her tea.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says.

“Thank you,” Betty replies quietly, and they lapse back into silence.

“Hey Betty,” Peggy says, a good half hour later. “What was number two?”

“Huh?”

“You said, ‘OK, back up, _one_ ’. What’s two?”

Betty pulls a face like she’s searching back though her memory. “Oh! Oh yeah.”

Betty fixes Peggy with a serious look. “Two is: Love is not, and never will be, a competition. It works, or it doesn’t, but if it doesn’t, it’s not because you’re _less_.”

 

Betty’s phone rings periodically and Peggy can only assume it’s Steve trying to get hold of her, but Betty never says a thing.

Peggy still refuses to go back home – to Steve’s – for anything, so she borrows clothes from Betty and gets absolutely no work done. She also borrows Betty’s phone to call Faiza and Susan, and ends up having to retell the whole tale for their benefit; Susan is livid while Faiza remains quiet the whole time. It’s awful and terrible and Peggy tries to hold on to her anger, but Betty’s logic and her own common sense conspire against her. Peggy wants to see Steve almost as much as she never wants to see him again, and Peggy never thought it could feel like this; that she loves enough to want to work through all the hurt.

She lasts two days.

 

When Peggy steps back into the flat she shares with Steve, he’s waiting for her. He looks stressed and wrung out and as if he hasn’t slept properly since she left. Idly she wonders if he went into school today or if he called in sick.

“Peggy!” he says, as soon as she steps through the door. “I – ”

But Peggy simply holds up her hand, silencing him. Everything feels and looks off – Steve, herself, the room – and if she hears anything right now she’ll probably cry. But they have to work this out, because Peggy just tried two days without Steve and they sucked.

“Shower first,” she says quietly. “Let me shower first and then we – ”

She stops suddenly, her brain finally working out why the room looks so strange.

Every gift Bucky has ever given Steve has been removed. In fact, the only things that she can see from Bucky are the leather bracelet Steve always wears and the Indian pants she’s still got on.

“Where – where did it all go?” she asks.

Steve glances around the room before saying quietly, “I – I put them away. I didn’t – ” He cuts himself off.

“Go have your shower,” he says eventually. “Then we’ll talk.”

When Peggy gets out of the show twenty minutes later it’s to find Steve in the front room with tea. He smiles at her, unsure and sort of lopsided, and when she sits at one end of the sofa he sits at the other. The distance makes Peggy ache, even after everything.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says after a brief pause, and Peggy looks at him over the top of her mug. “I’m sorry for not telling you I’m bi. I’m sorry for not telling you about Bucky. I am sorry that as a result of those things, I made you feel betrayed and – and, unimportant and,” he takes a deep breath, “cheated on. It wasn’t my intention. I – I never want to make you feel like that Peggy, I just – I just forgot – ”

“You forgot,” Peggy says flatly. “You forgot that this might be something that I’d want to know.”

Steve looks guilty. “I – yes.”

Peggy raises a disbelieving eyebrow, but before she can say anything more, Steve carries on.

“I forget that just because I talk about him all the time doesn’t mean you know him. I forget that just because you all know the dumb shit we did as kids doesn’t mean that you know what we were like then. I forget that you’ve never met him, or even talked to him, because he’s never in the country.”

Steve hunches over his cup of tea before saying quietly, “I’m so used to our relationship that I forget that it’s unusual.”

In a way, Peggy understands. She remembers friends she had as a kid with whom she had entire invented languages – codes – that they used so much that she sometimes forgot that others didn’t understand them. But at the same time, this is a whole swathe of Steve’s personality, of his history, that he’d not told her. How could you forget to tell your partner that your best friend was also your ex-lover, especially when you and your best friend are the same sex?

Once again, Peggy feels like crying.

“Steve,” she asks quietly, “do you love Bucky?”

She watches as Steve’s expression slides from surprised to scared to sad. He nods.

Peggy blows out a long breath and wills back tears.

“Steve,” she asks again, even quieter than before, “are you in love with Bucky?”

And now Steve’s expression is just stuck on sad.

“No Peggy,” he says even quieter. “I am not in love with Bucky.”

Peggy closes her eyes as the tears spill over, and she cries into her hands – from relief, yes, and from anger and from exhaustion and because, under everything, she can now see Steve’s hurt, can _understand_ Steve’s hurt. Because what hurts more than the realisation that you can’t give your best friend that one thing they want?

“Can I – ?” comes Steve’s voice, much closer than before. “Can I hug you please?”

As soon as she nods Steve pulls her to him and slowly his t-shirt becomes wet with her tears. She digs her nails into his shoulders because she still wants him to hurt, but she pulls him closer because she doesn’t want him to leave, ever.

When they eventually pull apart she finds her t-shirt is wet too and Steve’s eyes are red-rimmed.

“I love _you_ , Margaret Carter,” he says quietly.

Peggy laughs, wet and sad sounding.

“And I must love you, Steven Rogers, because I sure as hell wouldn’t let anyone else makes me feel this shit,” and she pulls him back in and just holds on.

 

Peggy doesn’t bring Bucky up after that and Steve seems content to start cooking rather than stirring it all up again. So they have chicken and potatoes and Peggy tries to get used to the house without all its strange paraphernalia from all over the world. She finds she can’t though, the rooms looking somehow less bright and happy than before, so she digs out a wall hanging she bought on her gap year in India and, with a questioning glance at Steve who nods, hangs it up on the wall behind the TV.

However, Peggy knows this isn’t a topic that should be left for too long, so she only lets Steve get away with not talking about it for a couple of days before she decides to bring it up for him.

“So,” she says, after dinner the following Wednesday, “Bucky is in love with you.”

Steve flinches like he’d forgotten, before nodding.

“But you’re not in love with him.”

And Steve nods again.

Peggy doesn’t say anything more, waiting instead for Steve to fill in the blanks.

“I didn’t realise,” he says eventually, looking at his hands. “I didn’t _notice_.”

Peggy fiddles with the edge of her t-shirt. She can see a possible reason for that, for Steve not noticing – a horrible, very sad possible reason – but she doesn’t know Bucky at all, so doesn’t feel like she can voice it. She might be wrong, it might be something else entirely, but when Steve suddenly sucks in a breath and turns his gaze, horrified and heartbroken, on her she has the feeling that she’s correct. Why it’s taken him this long to work it out, she can’t think, unless he’s spent the past few days studiously ignoring it. Much like Bucky, she suspects, has spent the past however many years gallivanting around the world in an effort to ignore it.

“Do you think – ?” he says quietly, “do you think it’s always… he’s always felt like this? Since… since we were kids?”

Steve looks horrified at the thought, and Peggy imagines Bucky – a man she doesn’t know – carrying a torch for Steve since they were kids; nearly thirty years of love and longing for someone he must have known, in the back of his mind, didn’t love him the same way. Because Bucky _must_ have known, otherwise why would he always leave?

Peggy doesn’t nod though, because that would be too cruel. Instead she asks, “Have you asked him?”

Steve shakes his head.

“He was… he was staying with Chris and Emma – um, his… his uncle and aunt – out Haxby way. I’d… I’d told him about you. Every…” he runs his hand through his hair, “every time we spoke I’d tell him. You – ‘cause, I’m – You make me so happy, you know? And he’s my best friend. I want him to know you. So… so he knew, I guess, that he couldn’t stay here, but he… I don’t know. He’s only met one other girlfriend of mine, and the next time he came home we’d split up, so I guess he thought we weren’t serious or something, even though I – ”

Steve cuts himself off, looking miserable and guilty, but Peggy doesn’t say anything so eventually Steve continues.

“So on Thursday he finally turns up here and he’s fine for about two seconds and then he’s just cold and angry and… he’s not like that. And then I realise that your stuff is all over my house, everywhere, ‘cause it’s not my house anymore, it’s our house. But I guess he’d blanked that or something. And he gets passive aggressive and says some horrible things about you. I get angry and yell and _he_ gets angry and yells, and we’re both yelling and… I can’t remember what I said but suddenly he just yells ‘because I fucking _love_ you, you daft fuck!’ and… and _leaves_. And… and I didn’t know what to _do_ and you weren’t here and… and…”

Steve drops his head into his hands.

“I never noticed… I never noticed anything different and looking back I still can’t see it. Unless it’s _everything_ , unless it was never _not_ there.”

He looks up at her and Peggy doesn’t even try to hide her tears, because Steve looks wrecked and she hates that. And because she can’t imagine what this must be like for Steve, but she spent two days thinking maybe she couldn’t have this and they were possibly the worst two days of her life, and Bucky has felt like that day after day for years – _decades_ – and even just the idea of it makes it feel as though a black hole has opened in her chest.

“What if I was leading him on? Was – I was wasn’t I? Every time we slept together, and when we were drunk and we kissed and fooled around and, and – _fuck_.”

Steve runs his hand through his hair, looking wild and slightly frantic. “He’s still the most beautiful man I’ve probably ever met, I just – I’m not. Oh Christ. I am the worst friend.”

Peggy pulls a cushion to her chest, burying her face into the material while Steve talks, just to give herself something else to focus on, and now she pulls it just far enough away from her face to say, “You need to call him.”

Because Steve does. Because they need to sort this out for several reasons, including the admittedly selfish fact that Peggy has now seen what Steve is like when they’re fractious and out of line and she hates it.

“What?”

“You need to call him,” she repeats, trying to stop her breath from hitching too much.

“He probably never wants to talk to me again,” Steve mumbles. “I wouldn’t blame him.”

He sounds so miserable that Peggy shuffles closer, pulling him to her before stretching them out so they lie tangled on the sofa. Steve buries his face in her neck and his hands come up to curl in her t-shirt. She strokes his hair for a while before kissing his eyebrow.

“Look around you,” she says eventually, and when Steve doesn’t move she nudges him until he does.

“What?” he mumbles.

“Look at how weird your house – our house – looks, when you take Bucky out. He’s half of who you are, Steve. You need to talk to him, sort this out.”

“Fuck, Peg. What if he never wants to see me again? What do I do?”

Peggy drops another kiss into his hair.

“He’s been all the way around the world, yet he always comes back here. I don’t think he’s going to cut you out. But if he does, we’ll cope.”

“We?” Steve asks.

“Of course ‘we’, Steve,” Peggy says gently. “I’m not – I’m not _leaving_. I’m still angry with you for… how this all came out, but I’m not leaving you, Steve.”

She shrugs, a weird jerk against the sofa cushions.

“You’ve got me now. You’re going to have to try harder than this to get rid of me.”

 

Eventually Steve agrees to call Bucky. Peggy offers to clear out for a while – take some stuff and stay with Susan if that makes it easier – and Steve looks pained but says it’s probably for the best. So Peggy calls Susan, who agrees immediately on account of still being furious at Steve on Peggy’s behalf. But before she leaves Peggy gets Steve to promise to keep her updated and, that when they’ve got to place where it’s convenient, that Peggy is to finally meet Bucky.

So Peggy goes to Susan’s on the Monday and attempts to carry on with her PhD and TA-ing and working and volunteering like nothing overly dramatic has occurred. Mostly it’s just about OK, though she knows her lectures were sub-par at best. She has no idea how Steve will manage it; trying to fix things with Bucky during the evenings and having to be chipper and teach kids during the day.

Oxfam turns out to be a godsend for Peggy that week. She volunteers on a Wednesday currently, as it’s the one day of the week she feels she can spare from both the library and her lectures, and she works with the manager Nick and a rather loud but ever cheerful Norwegian student called Thor. Mostly she stays on the till, talking to customers when they’re there and to Thor when they’re not.

This Wednesday, however, is unusually busy, which suits Peggy down to the ground. They have three huge donations of books, one of music, and take almost £450. Peggy also chats to a young guy called Clint who wants to volunteer with them and, as Nick is currently short on volunteers, Peggy pulls out all the stops to convince him that this is a wonderful place to be. She hopes it works; the guy looked like he needed something good to come his way and he’d already made her laugh so she thinks he’ll be a good fit.

Steve doesn’t ring her every night, instead choosing to call during his lunch break at school, presumably because Bucky is over in the evenings. She tells him about her lectures and research and he mostly complains about his kids and trying to teach hungover. It seems working stuff out with Bucky needs a great deal of alcohol – not that Peggy is surprised. He doesn’t say much about how the two of them are faring beyond “I think we’re going to be alright” and Peggy is itching to question him about it. However, she has to concede that discussing over the phone with your partner about trying to fix things with your ex-lover whilst in school is neither professional nor particularly smart. So she has to simply hope he’s telling her everything (and she hates that she’s aware now that he might not be) and wait for a fuller explanation when she next sees him.

Susan has been fantastic too, despite still being angry at Steve. She’s let Peggy take over her kitchen table for her research and has at least tried to restrain from badmouthing Steve too often.

“Can I slap Steve next time I see him?” she asks on Wednesday evening, as she watches Peggy type up some of her notes.

“No,” Peggy says shortly, not even looking up.

“Can I slap the other guy?”

“Definitely not,” Peggy says. “None of this is Bucky’s fault.”

“But – ”

Peggy’s head snaps up.

“No, Suze,” she says, brooking no argument. “None of this is Bucky’s fault.”

“Well it’s not _your_ fault either, so I still want to slap Steve.”

“No.”

“How are you so calm about this?”

Peggy saves her document and snaps her laptop shut. “Practice,” she says.

“How’d you get practice for stuff like this?” Susan asks sceptically and Peggy raises an eyebrow, smirking.

“I managed alright with all your relationship troubles, didn’t I?”

“Ooh,” Susan says over her wine. “ _Burn_.”

 

When Steve rings Thursday lunchtime, the first words out of his mouth are, “Peggy, please come home.”

“Have you sorted it all out?” Peggy asks mostly to stop herself from saying ‘yes’ immediately.

“Um, mostly,” Steve says. “But mostly I just miss you. And I sleep better when you’re here and I feel gross and halfway hungover and this week has been _rough_ and I’m overtired and… I just want you to come home. Please come home.”

Peggy says ‘yes’ because she’s spent the past four days doing lacklustre lectures and sub-par research all because she’s missed him more than she thought possible.

She says yes because she can’t think of a single good reason not to.

 

Steve’s waiting just inside the door when Peggy gets home that evening and, even though she knows she’ll probably regret dropping her bag and laptop on the floor as soon as she sees him, she can’t bring herself to care when she’s wrapped around Steve so tightly it hurts. God, but she’s missed him.

“It’s dumb to have missed you so much when you’ve literally just been in Oxford for a week,” Steve mumbles into her collar, “but God I’ve missed you.”

Peggy laughs slightly and pulls back to kiss him hard on the mouth.

“I was thinking the exact same thing.”

She crowds him up against the back of the sofa and runs her hands through his hair, just basking in the feeling of having him close again.

“How are you?” she asks, just as he opens his mouth to say something.

“Oh, um, OK. Considering,” Steve says, his fingers curling under the belt of her dress. “Teaching while hungover is horrible though.”

Peggy laughs and rests her forehead against his.

“I can imagine.”

“And Nick rang asking for emergency cover on Sunday, but I don’t think I can so I feel a little bad about – ”

“Hello.”

Peggy jerks away from Steve at the sound of another voice in the room and turns to find a man with an appalling haircut, very strange drop crotch pants, and a vest top pulled all out of shape standing awkwardly  at the kitchen door. He gives a dorky little wave, looking uncomfortable, and it takes Peggy a split second to realise that this is the elusive Bucky.

“Um – ”

“Steven Rogers!” she suddenly exclaims, cutting off whatever he was planning to say by whacking him, hard, on the arm. “When we have guests over you _tell me_. Honestly, were you raised by wolves?”

“I tried to say,” Steve says defensively.

“And I’m sure you tried very hard,” Peggy replies slightly patronisingly as she untangles herself from Steve’s hands and makes her way to where Bucky is still hovering by the kitchen door.

“Hello,” she says, as non-threatening as she can muster, “I’m Peggy, pleased to meet you.”

Bucky looks at her hand warily before shaking it.

“Hi,” he says quietly, and an awkward silence descends.

“You did know I was coming back today right?” Peggy asks finally. “I don’t have to berate Steve for that too, do I?”

Bucky smiles briefly and glances at Steve for a moment before saying quietly, “No, I knew.”

“OK,” Peggy says, and when no one does anything she says, “OK, I want tea, so you two stop hovering and sit down. Bucky, what tea do you want?”

Bucky is looking at Steve again, but turns at her question.

“Chai,” he says, by reflex Peggy assumes. “I mean, whatever you’re having is fine.”

Peggy thinks for a moment.

“I think I can remember how to make chai.”

“Yeah?” Bucky says softly, and for the first time he meets her gaze. His eyes are very blue.

“You’ll have to find the spices,” she says, smiling softly, “but the rest I think I can manage.”

So Bucky follows her into the kitchen and, once Peggy points out where the spices are kept, he rummages around, finding what he wants while Peggy gets out the mugs.

“A teaspoon of those,” he says eventually, gesturing to a collection of spices, “half of those, and a pinch of these.”

Peggy nods in thanks as she gets out the milk, but Bucky doesn’t leave the kitchen like she expects him to. Instead he hovers around the door, like he’s working up the courage to ask something.

“Where did you learn to make chai?” he asks eventually, when the kettle has boiled and Peggy’s nearly done.

“I spent six weeks of my undergrad gap year in India,” she says, testing the chai to make sure it’s done before removing it from the hob. “I got the wall hanging behind the TV from a market in Agra. The guy who sold it to me told me how.”

“Oh,” Bucky says quietly, like he’d just worked something out.

“What?”

Bucky’s smile is slightly lopsided and self-deprecating.

“I thought I’d bought that for Steve and just couldn’t remember where from.”

He helps her take the tea out into the front room, where Steve is looking awkward and staring at the now Buddha-less fireplace.

“What’s up Steve?” Bucky asks as he hands him his tea, his voice far more animated than when he was talking to Peggy.

“It looks weird without the Buddha,” Steve replies, and Peggy has to agree. In fact, she’s honestly surprised that none of Bucky’s gifts have made it back out yet from wherever Steve stashed them.

She sees Bucky glance at the fireplace, then at Steve, and then at her. He looks uncomfortable again – but of course he would, Peggy realises. Because he knew this place before Peggy lived here. He can see even better than her the emptiness all his stuff has left behind.

How is it that her life ended up so complicated? She only came up here for a PhD.

“Hey Steve, where’d you put him?” Peggy asks.

“Who?” Steve asks, tearing his gaze away from the fireplace.

“Buddha,” she says, getting up and reaching to pull him from the sofa. “C’mon, let’s put him back. And the figures from the toilet, and the painting from the kitchen. C’mon,” she continues, turning to Bucky. “You can tell me where you got them. Have you been to Tibet? I’ve always wanted to go to Tibet.”

So Steve digs out all Bucky’s gifts from hidey holes around the house that Peggy can’t remember even noticing before, and Bucky tells stories about how he found them. His and Steve’s familiarity makes Peggy slightly jealous, but Bucky makes her laugh and it doesn’t take long for her to see why he means so much to Steve: there’s respect there, and love and understanding and the kind of embarrassing stories that can only come from being friends since childhood. And if she catches Bucky looking fondly at Steve, or sees his abortive movements to touch his cheek or graze his ankle or lean into him, well she can understand it, because she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that if their positions were reversed she’d be doing the exact same thing.

 

Bucky stays for a week, sleeping on their sofa at the weekend and staying with Chris and Emma in Haxby on school nights. Peggy finds it mostly OK, though there are times when she resents Bucky’s familiarity with Steve, and times when she can tell that Bucky’s jealousy is surfacing. But it’s mostly alright, and those times when it’s not, she at least tries to talk to Bucky about it – to clear the air – though it’s difficult as she can think of no good way to say ‘sorry I stole the love of your life’, especially as she didn’t really steal anything and, even if she had, she can’t really pretend to be all that sorry about it.

But mostly, mostly they’re alright.

“You know,” Steve says, the night before Bucky is due to leave for some far-flung place he hasn’t decided on yet, “I think my cunning plan worked out quite well.”

“What cunning plan?” Bucky asks through a mouth full of pasta.

“My ‘how to get Peg and Buck to see that the other is pretty damn awesome’ plan.”

Peggy frowns at him from across the table.

“There was a plan?”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve shrugs. “Phase one: get you to yell at me for forgetting to introduce Buck to you, because nothing endears people to Buck more than people calling me on my crap. Phase two: get you to suggest moving Bucky’s stuff back in here which a) shows you’re willing to try and b) gets Bucky to talk about travelling, which shows he actually does interesting stuff and isn’t someone who just fucks off leaving his friends behind, which I _know_ you thought sometimes so don’t try and deny it.”

There’s a stunned silence before Peggy grabs the first thing that comes to hand – the oven gloves used to take the pasta bake out of the oven – and throws them at Steve.

“You conniving, devious little shit!” she exclaims as Bucky punches him on the arm. “I can’t believe you did that! You little – ”

“Less of the little!” Steve laughs, dodging Bucky’s blows. “A man could get a complex!”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah, like that’s likely.”

“Yeah, you’re – ”

Peggy cuts herself off abruptly, suddenly realising the implications of what Bucky has said just as he himself does. She turns wide eyes on Bucky, who looks as if he wants to sink into the floor, and then at Steve, who’s looking between them with such an amused, fond expression that Peggy can’t help herself. She lets out a strangled sound and then descends into helpless, shaking laughter.

“Phase three,” Peggy distantly hears Steve say. “At some point, hope that Bucky says something dumb. Because nothing endears Bucky to people more than when he says something dumb.”

 

Unlike every other school night, Bucky stays over at theirs the Thursday night before he leaves. He’s already said goodbye to Chris and Emma – and Peggy doesn’t even try to puzzle out their relationship – so it’s only Steve, and now by association Peggy, that he wants to see before he goes.

Steve gets up early to go to school, and Peggy’s only half aware of his and Bucky’s mumbled goodbye before he leaves. If she’s honest, she’d expected Bucky to have left with him, but when she gets up an hour later it’s to find Bucky sat rather uncomfortably on the sofa with his smaller-than-expected backpack at his feet.

“Morning,” he says quietly as she comes into the front room.

“Morning,” she replies equally quietly, painfully aware that she’s wearing her favourite silk nightie and nothing else. “Thought you’d’ve left with Steve.”

Bucky shifts again, showing his unease.

“Wanted to say goodbye,” he says eventually, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Oh.”

Peggy can’t quite think of what to say to that, so instead she reaches around the bedroom door for a nightgown, pulling on some striped cotton thing that she knows isn’t hers. Bucky looks at it and looks away, his expression sad.

Peggy sighs.

“You bought this for Steve, didn’t you?” she says, internally berating herself for not paying attention.

Bucky nods, not looking at her.

“I can swap it,” she says, already reaching around the door again, but Bucky quickly shakes his head.

“Gotta get used to it at some point,” he says quietly, and Peggy’s chest aches.

“I’m – ” but she cuts herself off before she can say ‘sorry’ because she has no more to say sorry for than he does.

“Would you like some chai?” she says instead, and when Bucky nods, she moves into the kitchen.

“Where are you going this time?” she says when she feels him enter after her. She frowns at the dirty pots in the sink before reaching to rinse one out. The milk appears at her elbow.

“I got a cheap ticket to Hyderabad,” Bucky replies, getting out coffee for her. “So India to start, but after that,” he shrugs,” I don’t know.”

They’re quiet for a while as they finish making up each other’s drinks – Bucky only making her coffee to have something to do, she assumes. They smile awkwardly at each other as they swap mugs before sitting down at the table.

“Don’t stay away too long,” Peggy says eventually, but Bucky just _looks_ at her over the rim of his mug.

“I’m serious, Bucky.”

But he just shrugs. “Not all that much to come back for,” he says.

Peggy frowns. How she ended up with this role – pointing out the bloody obvious to two guys who’ve known each other almost all their lives – she has no idea, but if that’s where she’s landed she’s bloody well going to keep it up, because she refuses to become the reason the two of them no longer talk. She does not need that kind of resentment coming her way.

“You’re Steve’s best friend,” she says bluntly, “he’ll want to see you. You’re Steve’s best friend, _I_ want to get to know you.”

“Well,” Bucky snaps, “not everything is about _you_.”

Peggy sighs, running her hand through her hair before pressing her fingers to her forehead.

“I know,” she says quietly, “but staying away isn’t going to make it any easier.”

She watches as Bucky curls in on himself and she hates that she had to bring it up.

“I know,” he whispers into his mug, and then don’t say anything for a long time.

“When’s your flight?” Peggy asks eventually.

“Half three.”

“And you’re flying from Manchester?”

“Yeah.”

Peggy nods. “OK. Let me get dressed and I’ll walk you to the station.”

Bucky looks startled. “You don’t have to.”

“But I want to. Just let me get showered and dressed.”

She gets up and dumps her cup in the sink. She’s nearly at the bedroom door when Bucky’s voice comes from the kitchen.

“Has he asked you yet?”

“Has he asked me what?”

“Never mind,” Bucky says, appearing at the kitchen door with a smile on his face that is stuck somewhere between fond and sad.

Peggy sends him a quizzical look, but he just shoos her through the door, still smiling, and she decides to drop the matter.

She emerges half an hour later feeling energised, make-up in place and wearing her favourite green dress and leather jacket. When Bucky sees her he pushes off the sofa, shouldering his backpack and sliding his feet into his beat up boots.

“Ready?” Peggy asks, picking up her laptop bag, and Bucky nods, giving the room one last once-over before walking out the door.

They walk to the station, passing the Oxfam shop she volunteers in, which prompts her to recount to Bucky stories of strange donations. They arrive at the station with quarter of an hour to spare.

“You know, I can see it,” Bucky says as they wait on the platform for his train to arrive.

“See what?” Peggy asks, drawing her jacket closer in around herself. How is it that train stations are always, _always_ colder than being outside?

“What Steve sees in you.”

Peggy turns to look at him. His hair is in a messy ponytail and he looks every inch the kind of guy to just roam around the world.

“You’d be easier to hate if you weren’t so nice.”

Peggy doesn’t know what to say to that.

The station tannoy blares into life and the echo-y announcement for the ‘eleven oh three TransPennine Express service to Manchester Airport’ rings through the station. Bucky hikes his backpack back onto his shoulders and turns to face her.

“It was nice to meet you, Peggy Carter,” he says as if he can’t quite believe that it’s true.

“You too, Bucky.”

Bucky gives her an amused look.

“He hasn’t told you my name, has he?” he says knowingly, as the train screeches into the station.

Peggy laughs.

“No, he has not.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, looking fond and unsurprised.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he says, with a little mock-courtly bow, “at your service.”

Peggy laughs again, before curtseying.

“Margaret Carter at yours, m’lord,” she replies.

He smiles and turns to get on the train and Peggy makes a split second decision.

“Wait!” she calls, digging into her bag to pull out her keys. She quickly removes her front door key before pressing it into his palm.

“Don’t say away too long,” she says, and she can still see Bucky’s stunned expression as the train pulls away from the platform.

 

Steve is subdued for a couple of days after Bucky leaves, but it doesn’t take long for things to get back to normal – or what’s normal now at least. Peggy finally manages to have all the discussions with Steve regarding his ‘withholding of information’  that she couldn’t have when Bucky was around, which start off heavy and serious and generally then degenerate into discussions regarding who is the most attractive Hollywood actor. (Peggy maintains that they don’t build guys half as good as Gregory Peck anymore, while Steve argues, “Say what you like, but you wouldn’t say no to Idris Elba,” which Peggy has to concede to.)

Time passes and Steve begins preparing his kids for their exams while Peggy finally gets permission from the British Library to study some of their manuscripts, which means she spends two weeks in London staying with her cousin Sharon. When she returns, she finds Clint – the guy she signed up for volunteering at Oxfam – has joined the Wednesday team and that Bucky sent her and Steve a postcard and matching elephant statues from India. They’re beautiful and there’s a brief deliberation before they’re placed next to the Buddha, one on either side.

Susan gets a promotion at work, so Peggy, Faiza, and Susan go out for drinks to celebrate. Peggy brings Steve along, because she wants him to know her friends better, and Susan doesn’t even complain, though Peggy suspects it’s largely to do with the alcohol and the fact that Steve being there gives Faiza’s fiancé Abdul – who has come up from London to visit and is hilariously, Peggy thinks, the most Scottish person she’s ever met – someone to talk to, leaving the three of them free to catch up like they haven’t been able to in quite some time.

Peggy also goes out for drinks with the Oxfam lot, as Thor turns twenty and invites everyone out to celebrate. Obviously Steve comes to that too and they share fond looks as Thor gets tipsy and proceeds to tell anyone who will listen about the wonderful girl he met while visiting London.

So it’s mostly back to normal, apart from Steve now sometimes comments about hot guys on TV and Bucky’s parcels are occasionally addressed to both of them – or once just to her. She opened that one to find a key ring with a beautiful cloth lotus flower pendant, and when Steve saw it he looked _so pleased_.

 

That summer Doctor Faiza Hussain finally marries Doctor Abdul Haqq Walid, a mortuary assistant for the London Met. Peggy doesn’t qualify for the Indian-wedding equivalent of a bridesmaid – there are at least thirty cousins vying for that position – but she and Susan are both gifted with beautiful wedding suits to wear on the day. Peggy’s is red, gold, and black and when she goes out to show Steve, he goes very quiet before coming right up into her space and touching her cheek oh so lightly with the tips of his fingers.

“Fuck,” he says, almost reverently. “You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

(Steve must tell Bucky about the wedding because, a week before they’re due to travel to London for it, a package arrives from India containing bangles and matching earrings for her and a long waistcoat for him. They all match Peggy’s suit and Steve finds a note in one of his pockets saying, ‘Now THIS I can help you with.’)

The wedding is amazing; a riot of colour and sound and so many faces Peggy can’t keep up. Faiza looks stunning under all her gold jewellery, Abdul looks deliriously happy, and the whole thing is so perfect that Peggy doesn’t want it to end, so she drags Steve up to dance to Bhangra song after Bhangra song until they can hardly stand.

Apart from the actual wedding day they hardly see Faiza and Abdul, who have a hundred and one family obligations and functions to attend before finally escaping to Réunion, of all places, for their honeymoon. So Peggy and Steve hang out with Susan and some other mutual friends from Peggy’s undergraduate days, before staying on in London for a week after the wedding with Sharon in Holloway and splitting their time fairly equally between Camden swing nights, bookshops, record stores, and museums. It makes a nice break before her final year of PhD madness.

 

“Let’s go out tonight,” Steve says one evening in mid-October. “Wear something nice.”

“Any particular occasion?” Peggy asks, only half paying attention while trying to wrangle the first draft of her PhD into shape.

“Last evening before I go back to school?” Steve suggests. “I fancy getting someone else to cook? You look particularly beautiful today?”

Peggy raises an eyebrow at that one. She hasn’t left the house at all today and her hair is less than stellar.

Steve shrugs. “Do I need a reason?”

“Steve, I really need to get this done.”

“And I really need to see you in that green dress. One of us is going to be disappointed today and I’m voting for you.”

“My option involves not moving.”

“My option involves sex.”

Peggy levels him a flat look.

“Well, more so than yours does!”

“You never know,” she says vaguely, turning back to her laptop. “I might have a thing for dead Anglo-Saxons.”

Steve bursts out laughing. “OK, now we’re definitely going out, because clearly you’ve been driven insane if you thought that was a witty, appropriate, and non-creepy comeback.”

He comes over to where she’s hunched over the table and she only gets a second’s warning before Steve’s hand appears over she shoulder, ctrl+S-ing her work before snapping her laptop shut.

“Steve!” she yelps.

“Relax, I saved it,” he say, playfully hauling her out of her chair despite her protests. “Now c’mon. Green dress.”

“You’re a surprisingly unlikeable person,” Peggy says, trying not to smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve replies, rolling his eyes before kissing her on the mouth. “Now get.”

Steve takes her to Piccolino’s, literally just across the road to their flat, and Peggy playfully complains about him not making an effort. But she feels much better after her quick shower and Steve is wearing a _very_ flattering shirt-and-jacket combo, so really everything is just dandy from where she’s standing. (Steve’s still wearing his ancient converse though, because, “Repeat after me, Margaret Carter: smart shoes are for work, weddings, and funerals, and nothing else.”)

The food is delicious and they’re served by one of Steve’s students – Kate Bishop – who blushes when she realises who she’s serving and can’t call him anything other than ‘Mr Rogers’. Peggy finds it hilarious, but tries her best not to look too amused while Kate’s around.

“Hey,” Steve says once their meal is almost over, “can I ask you a question?”

He’s playing with the ends of her hair, his fingertip just brushing her collar every now and again. They’re one of the last people in the restaurant and Peggy is so comfortable she just wants to sink into his side and never leave.

“Mmm,” she says, fiddling with the stem of her now-empty wine glass. “OK.”

Steve shuffles a little and suddenly there’s something green and glittery in her line of sight.

“Margaret Carter,” he says, “will you marry me?”

Distantly Peggy is aware of server-Kate approaching the table, taking in the scene and swiftly walking away again, but most of her mind is filled with an odd, static buzz.

Bucky’s voice drifts across her mind saying, ‘Has he asked you yet?’

“You’re wearing shitty converse,” she says blankly, turning wide eyes on him.

“I always wear shitty converse,” he says with a small smile, though his eyes are apprehensive. “I’d be worried if that suddenly becomes a deal breaker.”

Peggy’s brain comes back online and she breaks into a grin so wide her face hurts, her hands shaking as they come up to touch his jaw.

“I fucking love you, Steve Rogers,” she says, hardly able to form the words she’s smiling to hard. “Of course I’m gonna marry you.”

Steve lets out a shocked laugh and his face splits into a huge grin. He kisses her hard, before pulling back to stare at her in awe. Looking at him Peggy thinks that nothing has ever felt this good; not the first time they had sex, not when she got full funding for her PhD or those perfect lazy Sunday mornings. _Nothing_ compares to the look on Steve’s face in this moment.

Peggy lets out an undignified squeal and launches herself at him, knocking their glasses to the floor and startling the remaining customers in the room.

It’s only the heavy clunk of a bottle hitting their table that pulls them apart.

“On the house,” Kate says, nudging a bottle of champagne towards them. She blushes slightly. “I, um… I overheard. Congratulations, Mr Rogers and… um, the future Mrs Rogers.”

She smiles at them briefly, before nudging something else their way too.

“Also, your bill. We’re closing soon.”

 

Peggy’s engagement ring turns out to be small and delicate with a beautifully cut emerald flanked by two tiny diamonds.

“It was my mothers,” Steve says, Peggy tucked under his left arm as they cross the street, “and if it’s alright with you, you’ll get her wedding ring too.”

Peggy grins up at him.

“That’s fine by me,” she says as they get back to the flat, Steve dumping the champagne on the counter before turning to her with a heated look in his eyes. “C’mere you.”

Turns out Steve was right; his plan involved way more sex than hers ever could.

 

Bucky comes back two weeks later and Peggy can’t tell if it’s coincidence or if Steve told him and he’s really just that masochistic. He stays for two weeks, mostly with Chris and Emma, but sometimes with them. In the time he’s been away he’s gained himself a tattoo – something in Hindi on his collar bone that he refuses to translate – which leads him to pester both of them about getting tattoos of their own. Steve point black refuses – it’s not professional, he’s a teacher, and “Needles, Buck. No.” – but Peggy is halfway tempted; something in Old English perhaps, or Ogham or Old Norse – not that she can think of anything. That doesn’t stop Bucky from dragging her to various tattoo parlours when she’s not working though and talking a mile a minute how he “can’t believe you don’t already have one yet. You have that whole rockabilly, 50s electro-swing vibe going on. I’d’ve thought it was your thing.”

“I also study Anglo-Saxon burials.”

“So? I know a guy who really likes microbes. He’s got full sleeves.”

Peggy raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

“You meet some odd people while travelling!” Bucky says defensively.

In the end Peggy doesn’t get a tattoo – though it’s mostly because she can’t think of anything she wants permanently on her skin. Bucky pouts at her and then drags her along one day when he decides to get a small triangle tattooed on the back of his neck, for no reason she can fathom.

That’s not to say she and Bucky get on _all_ the time.

There are times when he’s moody and the silence between them is strained. Times when Peggy sees him frowning at the ring on her finger and she realises that, on top of everything it represents between her and Steve, Bucky would probably remember Steve’s mother wearing it too. Another layer of significance and shared memory Peggy has no part in.

Peggy resents his presence sometime too – Bucky has no work in the UK and sometimes Peggy feels that she and Steve have _too much_. Having Buck around when she’s trying to study is difficult and Steve works weekdays, so it’s not like he can act as a buffer all that often.

And then one day she and Bucky have a screaming row. It probably starts off trivial enough, but it ends up with all her petty frustrations and all his pent-up jealousy spilling out of their mouths. It’s only when Bucky yells, “You _stole_ him from me!” that the tirade on both sides ends. Peggy is pulled up short by the anguish on his face that quickly turns to horror, and she’s just a fraction too slow in trying to stop him slamming out the door, tears in his eyes.

She collapses onto the sofa, taking deep gulping breaths and trying not to cry. Because she’s still angry, sure, but underneath that anger is the simmering pit of horrified empathy for how Bucky must feel, that most of the time she tries to ignore because it’s just too awful, because she can’t even come close to imagining what it must be like; to be in love with someone for most of your life and then have to watch as that someone ends up with someone else.

And it’s _hard_ for her, OK? And she knows it’s hard for Steve and for Bucky too, but she sometimes feels that she’s the one  making the most effort, she’s the one compromising and she’s the one being hit hardest because _she’s_ the latecomer, the interloper.

Peggy curls up on the sofa, fighting back tears, and it only takes two minutes for her to decide to do something she’s never done in entire time she and Steve have been together: she calls Steve at school.

Steve cites a family emergency and gets the afternoon off. He sits with her and talks through everything with her; what she said, what Bucky said, and how she feels about their weird pseudo-threesome. She knows it’s partly just the stress of her PhD, but it’s also not, and they sit on the sofa until it gets dark.

Bucky doesn’t come back and when Steve rings his aunt and uncle’s to try and get hold of him Steve’s told he’s already left. They only find out he’s in Brazil when a parcel turns up addressed to both of them nearly a month later; Bucky apologising in the only way he knows how.

 

That Christmas, once it’s clear that Bucky isn’t coming back for their planned celebrations at Chris and Emma’s in Haxby, they decide to go to Peggy’s parents in Oxford. It’s a proper big family gathering; Sharon and her parents are there, to help represent the Carters against what feels like twelve million Duggan’s from Peggy’s mother’s side of the family.

Steve looks a little over-awed. Since Steve’s mother died his family has consisted of Bucky – who could literally be anywhere come Christmas – Chris and Emma and, for a while, Bucky’s grandmother Hester. Peggy aches to think of him with so little family; she and Sharon are the babies of the huge sprawling Carter-Duggan-Montgomery clan, so she’s always been surrounded by relatives of some description or another.

But soon it will be the Carter-Duggan-Montgomery- _Rogers_ clan and Steve will have a _huge_ family. Even better, Sharon may contribute that nice French guy – Antoine Triplett – she’s been seeing, which would be awesome. What’s more, by all accounts Antione’s family is just as big as Sharon’s, with hundreds of French Senegalese cousins spread out over two continents. Sharon and Antoine’s wedding would probably be Indian-levels of huge.

A week after new year – which they spend dancing the night away at the Electro-Swing Night at the Electric Ballroom in Camden with Sharon and Antoine – Peggy gets her final PhD deadline, and then the date for her thesis defence. They also finally set the date for their wedding: the last Saturday in June. Steve asks that they get married in the same church his parents got married in, and then insists that they have the reception in the Merchant Adventurers Hall because, “You study Anglo-Saxons! It’s Anglo-Saxon!”

“It’s medieval, Steve,” Peggy points out. “That’s about a thousand years later.”

“But it’s got exposed beams and it’s classy,” says Steve, undeterred. “C’mon! It’ll be great.”

 

The next couple of months pass in a blur for Peggy. She spends all waking hours (it feels like) at the library, tearing her hair out over sentence structures and poorly worked paragraphs. She even goes back home to Oxford for a week, partly to let her mother cook her meals and console her that she isn’t going to fail a PhD she’s devoted three years of her life to and partly to look at some final few documents from the Bodleian. Steve laughs when she tells him her plan and sends her off with a cake for her mother and York Brewery IPA for her father, because Steve is possibly the greatest thing to ever happen to her.

Her thesis defence is at the end of April and three days before, after absolutely no contact apart from the ever present parcels, Bucky turns up from Lima or São Paulo or Buenos Aires or wherever he’s been while Steve is at school. He bowls into the house thanks to his spare key, completely misses the fact that Peggy is stressed out of her mind, sits her down at the table and proceeds to go into great detail about how much of an arsehole he was and how sorry he is for everything he said last time he was over.

“ – and it’s not fair on you that I just dump my shit on you. But he’s the only guy I – well, it’s,” he takes a deep breath, “it’s not your fault any more than it’s mine or Steve’s and it just a shitty situation – for me, specifically, I guess. It feels like anyway – but that’s not your fault, and I’m really sorry I lashed out at you. I… you’re. I see it, OK? Why Steve’s marrying you.” He pauses then, a brief look of pain crossing his face before he forcibly smoothes it away. “And of course I get why you’re marrying him and I don’t get to be jealous or… or _possessive_ or, or anything really because… that’s just how it happened and I _like_ you so – but even if I didn’t I don’t have that right and I’m really sorry and… you look stressed. Is this a bad time?”

She’s so thrown by the sudden change of focus that she just stares blankly at him for a moment before her brain manages to change gear enough to accept his apology, make some of her own, and then tell him that, yes, this is sort of a really bad time.

Bucky, bless him, takes it in his stride. He insists on helping in any way he can and ends up quizzing her on various sections. His appalling pronunciation of Old English goes a long way to calm her down and by the time Steve comes back from school Peggy is calmer and Bucky is happier. Steve is delighted to find Bucky back and talks a mile a minute before asking, “What the hell is that new tattoo Barnes, you look like a juvenile delinquent,” which draws Peggy’s attention to a massive new sleeve tattoo on Bucky’s left arm that she’s honestly surprised she missed.

“It’s cool, eh?” he says, turning his arm this way and that so they can both see the weird plate metal marks on his skin. “It goes all the way up, though it’s not finished properly.”

“Yeah but _why_?” Steve asks.

“Fixing the bits that are missing,” Bucky shrugs, like that’s supposed to make any sense whatsoever.

“But you’re not missing anything,” Steve says softly.

Bucky pauses, looking sort of soft and hesitant. “No,” he says with a small smile. “I guess I’m not.”

Steve looks hopeful and hesitant and happy and sad all at once, and he reels Bucky into a hug with a soft, “Fuck, I missed you so much,” and Peggy just stands there confused. Sometimes she forgets just how well they know each other, and that seemed to have been a whole conversation spoken in some code she doesn’t understand. But then Bucky’s breath hitches, and Steve holds him tighter and Peggy suddenly _understands_ ; Bucky’s been fixing missing pieces but there’s nothing missing and now he’s here and apologising and _OK_.

In weird Bucky-logic it all makes sense somehow.

Peggy smiles and moves in to hug Bucky from the back.

“I don’t understand,” she mumbles into Bucky’s shoulder, just loud enough for Steve to hear her too, “how I ended up in a weird pseudo-threesome relationship.”

“You didn’t end up in a threesome relationship,” Steve mumbles back.

“Though if it’s any consolation,” Bucky adds, “you fall into the small but important category of women I’d totally sleep with.”

There’s a beat of comfortable silence where they all just hold onto each other and then Peggy feels the tell-tale motion of Steve laughing.

“What?” Bucky mumbles.

Steve pulls away from them both to look Bucky in the face.

“When have you _ever_ slept with a woman?” he asks laughing.

“Hey!” Bucky says indignant. “I’ll have you know there is a ridiculously attractive woman in São Paulo by the name of Yaya who I have slept with several times on account of her being fantastic and _hotter than sin_. Even Pegs would sleep with her and she’s super not gay.”

“How do _you_ know?” Peggy asks mischievously even though he’s basically right, and Bucky’s resulting goldfish expression has Peggy laughing so hard she has to hold onto Steve in order to not fall down.

 

Peggy’s thesis defence takes place on the Heslingdon West campus and, being a Wednesday, Steve can’t do more than wish her good luck before he goes to work. So Bucky ends up accompanying her, looking ridiculously out of place with his beat up boots, drop crotch pants, and his (now even more) terrible haircut. He sits next to her as she waits, tries his best to keep her calm, glares at anyone who looks at him funny, and actually kisses her on both cheeks when her name is called before wishing her good luck.

The next hour is a blank, and Peggy can’t fill the gap between Bucky wishing her good luck and Bucky hugging her when she comes out of the office no matter how hard she tries.

Bucky decides alcohol is in order and Peggy fervently agrees, so Steve goes straight from school to Trembling Madness to find Bucky drunkenly explaining his weird plated metal tattoo to Peggy, who nods enthusiastically in agreement.

Bucky attempts to leave soon after Steve turns up, but everything is just a little hazy around the edges for Peggy so when Bucky turns to her and says, “Remember what I said,” Peggy thinks it’s a great idea to say, a little too loudly, “So you like guys in lacy underwear too, eh?” and Bucky ends up not leaving at all because he’s laughing so hard at Steve’s embarrassment that he can hardly stand. And then Steve punches Bucky on the arm and there’s a brief scuffle in which chairs are scattered somewhat, and Peggy rings Faiza, Susan, and Betty to get them to come in after work, and they all end up having an impromptu Peggy-has-finally-finished-her-PhD party and getting home at two in the morning. Which everyone who isn’t Peggy and Bucky complain about, considering it’s a work night.

 

Once her PhD is basically over Peggy finds herself at a bit of a loss; huge stretches of time previously filled are suddenly open to her and she’s not quite sure what to do with herself. She applies for some jobs at York, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities and begins wedding planning before deciding that being a grown-up sucks and she wants the wedding to be as low-key as possible.

To that end she takes a part-time job at the local Waterstones bookshop, ups her Oxfam hours, and tells her bridesmaids-to-be (Faiza, Susan, Betty, and Sharon) that they’re to wear blue or green but past that she really doesn’t care. Peggy’s mother takes it upon herself to organise the flowers, as Peggy herself shows very little interest in that department, and Steve somehow gets Melinda-from-Oxfam’s sister-in-law to agree to do all the catering. He also gets his way with the church and the ring and the Merchant Adventurers Hall which, Peggy has to agree, makes a _spectacular_ reception venue.

In fact, the only thing Peggy expends any amounts of energy on is her wedding dress, which she buys from Oxfam’s bridal department and, with Faiza’s help, modifies until she literally never wants to take it off because _it is gorgeous._

The wedding of Steven Rogers to Margaret Carter takes place in St Denys’ on Walmgate on a beautiful June morning. It’s mostly attended by family from Peggy’s side – all those Carter-Duggan-Montgomery’s – and friends on Steve’s, friends who include many Oxfam volunteers and teachers from Steve’s school as well as Chris and Emma and, of course, Bucky, who, despite being the best man, turns up with an hour to spare straight off a plane from India. He looks startlingly handsome in a smart jacket and shirt with this ever-present boots (“Polished I swear!”) and drop crotch pants (because “Mate, after wearing these, everything else just feels restrictive.”) He’s even smartened his haircut – well, slightly.

As her father walks her down the aisle, smiling so hard it has to hurt, Peggy feels as though she could burst. Her bridesmaids look beautiful – Faiza’s suit matching Susan, Betty, and Sharon’s dresses perfectly – and her mother looks _so happy_ and Steve looks so fucking gorgeous she simultaneously wants to hide him away from everyone’s gazes, show him off for all too see, and rip his clothes off with her teeth. All of which boils down to making her feel punch drunk and the happiest person alive. And, judging by his expression, that’s pretty close to what Steve feels too.

They’re just about to say their vows when Bucky suddenly interrupts.

“Shit!” Because swearing in a church is something Bucky does.

“What?” says Steve who’s smiling too hard to really be bothered by anything right now, despite the fact that the priest looks slightly startled at the interruption.

“Just realised I’ve forgotten something,” Bucky replies, rifling through his pockets and producing a box.

“It better not be the rings, Buck.”

“Nope,” he says, coming up to where Steve and Peggy are standing in front of the alter, “just this.” Bucky then proceeds to smear henna paste onto their foreheads.

Peggy laughs, shocked and delighted.

“Isn’t this slightly culturally insensitive?” she asks. She looks over at Faiza and Abdul who just smile and shrug.

“Nope,” Bucky says loftily, snapping the box closed. “Kirrin, who you will meet on your lovingly planned tour of India, Nepal, and Tibet that I helped to organise for your honeymoon, gave it to me when I told her I was going to the wedding of two people I cared about very much.”

He has a slightly stubborn happy-sad expression on his face, but he still smiles widely before – to the delight of almost all the Carter-Duggan-Mongomery’s, who are all terrible, terrible people – kisses both Steve and Peggy full on the mouth, leaving tacky henna residue on the sides of their faces.

“It’s a blessing,” he says before turning to head back to his seat.

Peggy catches Steve’s eye and his grin, which was wide before, stretches even wider as, together, they lunge for Bucky, hauling him into their arms and planting simultaneous sloppy kisses on his cheeks.

Peggy thinks she hears some of the Oxfam lot – Clint and Darcy maybe? – whoop loudly, and she can _definitely_ hear both her mother and Emma laugh delightedly. Not for the first time, Peggy is extremely glad her family is ridiculously laid back.

And for the fact that the priest has known both Bucky and Steve since they were seven, otherwise that would be _incredibly_ embarrassing.

 

_Two months later_

“Doctor Margaret Rogers-Carter, don’t you have better things to be doing?”

Peggy is restocking Poetry, but she straightens at that voice.

“James Buchanan Barnes, what the hell are you doing back?” she says, smiling delightedly at Bucky, who’s stood in the middle of the shop drawing admiring looks from the new girl – Pepper – behind the counter.

“What? I can’t visit?” he says teasingly, sweeping her into a tight hug.

“You’re supposed to be in Bangladesh or wherever!”

Bucky shrugs. “Came back.”

“Yes, I can see that,” she says, swatting him playfully on the arm.

Bucky scrubs at the back of his neck, looking apprehensive. “Got on a course.”

“What?”

Peggy is sure she misheard. Because if Bucky Barnes is _here_ and got on a course, that means he’s got on a course _here_ and that means that he’s staying in the UK for _at least_ a year.

“Got on a course,” Bucky says again. “International Relations and Global Development at Leeds Beckett. It’s nowhere fancy but… you know, relevant topic and all.”

And then, when she doesn’t say anything, he says, “It’s three years.”

Peggy’s mouth works for a moment, before she manages to get out the words, “You’re moving back to the UK?” and then pulling a face. Because _of course_ he must be moving back to the UK. You can’t commute to Leeds Beckett from _Bangladesh_.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, a small smile finally finding its way back onto his face. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

And for a brief moment Peggy just stands there, grinning at him.

“Steve must be so pleased.”

“Um.”

“Um, what?” she says, frowning.

“I might not have told him yet?” It comes out as a question.

“Why not?”

“I – ” and Bucky falters slightly, before forcing out, “I wanted to tell you first.”

For a moment Peggy is at a complete loss as to why, but then the set of Bucky’s shoulders and the twist of his lips clue her in. Because they’re saying what Bucky can’t: _If you’d reacted badly, I wouldn’t’ve done it._

Peggy gives the shop floor a quick glance to make sure there are no customers or volunteers around to overhear, but there’s only a man by the art section and Pepper, who is pointedly reading her book.

“Bucky,” she says quietly, grasping his upper arms just tight enough to make him look at her. “I never want to get between you and Steve.”

Bucky looks away, frowning.

“I don’t resent your friendship. I don’t resent _you_. I want to be your friend, I want you to be Steve’s friend. I want you to be around, if that’s what you want. And while you and Steve and I have to take into account each other’s preferences and wishes in some cases, this is not one of those times. If you want to study, I have no weight on that decision.”

Bucky’s eyes had shut while she’d been talking, his frown becoming more pronounced until he looked almost in pain, as if the whole world was on his shoulders.

“I’m sort of in love with my best friend,” he says quietly, and then pauses to let the man from the art section move into the music section. “And you’re married to him,” he continues when the man has passed.

“I am,” Peggy says. “But I would never ask you to leave. Because that would hurt you, and that would hurt Steve, and that would also hurt me. And I have no intention of doing any of those things.”

Bucky slowly blows out a breath and his shoulders relax in increments. He opens his eyes and looks at her.

“Thanks,” he says quietly.

 _You needed to hear that from me out loud,_ Peggy thinks, but what she says is, “You’re welcome,” before drawing him into another tight hug.

“Now c’mon,” Peggy says, giving Bucky a final squeeze before letting him go. “Let’s go tell Steve.”

She grabs Bucky’s wrist and starts pulling him towards the back room.

“Wait, what?” Bucky splutters, almost tripping over his own feet. “Steve’s here?”

Peggy grins at him. “Yeah, he’s loitering. Came down straight from school because apparently the kids today were hellions and he needed proper adult conversation. He’s been chatting to Melinda for the past half hour.”

Bucky has a slightly shell-shocked expression on his face.  “Oh.”

Peggy frowns slightly. “You OK?”

“Yeah, yeah. I – wasn’t expecting him to be here.”

“He’s going to be so happy, Bucky,” Peggy says, slipping her hand from his wrist to curl around his hand, fingers interlacing.

“I – yeah,” he says quietly. And then again, looking up at her and grinning. “Yeah.”

Peggy grins back.

“OK just wait here a sec,” she says, stopping him just before he can enter the back room. She gives him an impish look which Bucky mirrors, running his hand through his hair, before going into the back room.

Steve is standing with his back to her, holding a cup of tea and having a very impassioned discussion with Melinda about Damien Hurst. He’s wearing a pale blue shirt and Peggy can’t help but flatten her palms against the wings of his shoulder blades.

“Guess who’s got on a course at Leeds Beckett?” she says into his ear.

“Huh?” he replies, turning to face her. “Leeds Beckett? What – Bucky! What are you – ?”

Bucky must have followed her in, despite her wanting to surprise Steve with some sort of grand reveal. But it doesn’t matter really, because Peggy can see when Steve puts two and two together and the unabashed joy that spreads over his face has to be one of the best expressions to ever grace his face.

“You’re moving back?” Steve asks, in that careful tone of voice that he uses when he doesn’t want to come across too strong.

Bucky grins big. “Yeah,” he says simply.

Peggy only just manages to grab the mug Steve thrusts at her before he’s rushing Bucky, grabbing him around the waist and hugging him so hard Bucky’s lifted off the ground, laughing joyously.

Bucky wraps his arms around Steve shoulders and holds on for dear life as Steve swings him round, narrowly avoiding the boxes of books stacked up against the wall.

“Put me down, you menace,” he says laughing.

“Nope, not doing,” Steve answers gleefully. “I’ve waited for-bloody-ever for this. You’re getting hugged a bit longer yet.”

Bucky huffs mock-annoyed and grins at Peggy over Steve’s shoulder.

“Peggy!” Steve exclaims, still not releasing Bucky.

“Right here,” she answers, amused.

“Buck’s staying!”

Peggy laughs. “I heard.”

“Here,” Melinda says quietly, reaching for the mug Peggy’s still holding and nudging her with shoulder. “Looks like you have some celebrating to be doing.”

Peggy watches as Steve’s grip on Bucky lessens, letting him stand properly again. They’re standing close now, arms still looped around each other, chatting quietly and grinning like maniacs. They look _so happy_ and Peggy feels a little lurch in her chest when she thinks it could be like this from now on; with Steve smiling and happy and _complete_ in a way he wasn’t with Bucky traipsing around the globe, not entirely.

Peggy grins.

“Looks like,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> This comes out of my desire for a ‘bi male character ends up with the girl’ story. Because fandom seems to spend a lot of time going ‘male character is bi’ to explain past girlfriends and falling in love with another guy, and then proceed to go ‘ah yes bi but mostly gay so no more girls ever’ and that pisses me off. Or maybe I’ve just been snooping in the wrong parts of fandom. Anyway. So this was never going to become a threesome fic. Which became problematic for me as towards the end of writing this I was reading a lot of Steve/Peggy/Bucky fic, and I had to physically restrain myself from making it into a threesome fic, cos that’s really not what I was aiming for.
> 
> Also, I haven't been to a Muslim wedding but I have been to a Sikh one, so the details there are fudged. No disrespect intended. Same goes for the henna - I'm not even sure why I wanted that in, just that I did. It seemed to fit.
> 
> Cookies for those who recognise Abdul Haqq Walid.


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